Earnings Labs

Commercial Metals Company (CMC)

Q2 2022 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 17, 2022

$69.04

-0.71%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

00:02 Hello, and welcome everyone to the Second Quarter Fiscal 2022 Earnings Call for Commercial Metals Company. Today’s materials, including the press release and supplemental slides that accompany this call can be found on CMC’s Investor Relations website. Today’s call is being recorded. After the company's remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session. And we will have a few instructions at that time. 00:30 I would like to remind all participants that during the course of this conference call, the Company will make statements that provide information other than historical information and will include expectations regarding economic conditions, the impact of the Russian invasion on Ukraine, effects of legislation, US steel import levels, US construction activity, demands for finished steel products, the expected capabilities and benefits of new facilities, the Company’s future operations, the timeline for execution of Company’s growth plan, the Company’s future results of operations, financial measures and capital spending. 01:12 These and other similar statements are considered forward-looking and may involve certain assumptions and speculation and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these expectations. 01:27 These statements reflect the Company’s beliefs based on current conditions that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those that are described in the Risk Factors and forward-looking statements section of the Company’s latest filings with the securities and exchange commission, including the Company’s latest annual report on Form 10-K. Although these statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs, CMC offers no assurance that these expectations or beliefs will prove to be correct, and results may vary materially. 02:05 All statements are made only as of this date except as required by law. CMC does not assume any obligation to update, amend or clarify these statements in connection with the future events, changes in assumptions, the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events, new information or circumstances or otherwise. 02:26 Some numbers presented will be non-GAAP financial measures, and reconciliations for such numbers can be found in the Company’s earnings release, supplemental slide presentation, or on the Company’s website. Unless stated otherwise, all references made to year or quarter and are references to the Company’s fiscal year or fiscal quarter. 02:46 And now for opening remarks and introductions, I will turn the call over to the Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Metals Company, Ms. Barbara Smith.

Barbara Smith

Management

03:00 Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining CMC's second quarter earnings conference call. Before we begin, I would like to again extend my appreciation and congratulations to CMC's 11,000 employees for another outstanding quarterly performance. Each day through your hard work you find innovative ways for our company to drive efficiencies across the business, improved product quality, deliver world-class customer service and advance our strategic vision. On behalf of the entire leadership team, we're extremely proud of your efforts and of the culture of teamwork and accountability that defines our organization and that you carry forward every day. 03:44 I'll start today's call with highlights from the quarter and a brief status update on CMC's strategic growth projects. I will also provide commentary regarding the impact of the war in Ukraine on CMC's people and business. Paul Lawrence will then cover the quarter's financial information in more detail, and I will conclude with a discussion of the current market environment and our outlook for the third quarter of fiscal 2022, after which we will open the call to questions. Before starting my prepared remarks, I would like to direct listeners to the supplemental slides that accompany this call. The presentation can be found on CMC's Investor Relations website. 04:31 Earnings from continuing operations were $383.3 million or $3.12 per diluted share on net sales of $2 billion, which is a record quarterly result for CMC. Excluding the impact of non-operational items that Paul will discuss, adjusted earnings from continuing operations were $187.6 million or $1.53 per diluted share, the second best in our company's history, trailing only the prior quarter. 05:04 CMC generated core EBITDA of $323.1 million, an increase of 89% from the year ago period and virtually unchanged from the historically seasonally stronger first quarter results.…

Paul Lawrence

Management

12:02 Thank you, Barbara, and good morning to everyone on the call today, as Barbara noted, we reported record fiscal second quarter 2022 earnings from continuing operations of $383.3 million or $3.12 per diluted share, compared to prior year levels of $66.2 million or $0.54 respectively. 12:28 Results this quarter include a net after-tax benefit of $195.8 million. The benefit was related to a large gain recognized on the sale of the California real estate, which was partially offset by debt extinguishment costs associated with the opportunistic refinancing completed during the quarter. 12:49 Excluding the impact of these items, adjusted earnings from continuing operations were $187.6 million or $1.53 per diluted share. Core EBITDA from continuing operations was $323.1 million for the second quarter of 2020, nearly doubled the $171.1 million generated during the prior year period. 13:17 Slide nine of the supplemental presentation illustrates the strength of CMC's quarterly results. Both our North American and Europe segments contributed significantly to year-over-year earnings growth, while core EBITDA per ton of finished steel reached a record level of $226 per ton. 13:40 Now I will review the results by segment for the second quarter of fiscal 2022. Excluding the gain realized on California land sale CMC's North American segment generated adjusted EBITDA of $262.1 million for the first -- for the quarter, just $6 million below the record level achieved in the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA per ton of finished deal shipped hit a new all-time high of $268. Segment adjusted EBITDA improved 53% on a year-over-year basis, driven by significant increases in margins on steel products and raw materials. Partially offsetting this benefit for higher controllable costs on a per ton of finished steel basis, due primarily to major maintenance programs and increased unit pricing for freight, energy and alloys.…

Barbara Smith

Management

23:34 Thank you, Paul. Turning now to market conditions, first in North America, we continue to see strong demand at the mill level for each of our major product groups. Rebar and wire rod are being supported by healthy construction markets with many customers indicating that their own order books are at multi-year or even all time highs. This anecdotal view is consistent with the current rate of growth in overall US construction spending as measured by the Census Bureau, which is growing at a high single-digit year-over-year rate. 24:09 Encouragingly, we are also seeing signs in both our internal indicators and external measures that the non-residential construction activity we anticipated is beginning to follow the rapid new community build out that has occurred in our Southern markets during the last two years. Historically, non-residential investment has followed residential construction by 12 to 24 months, as local, public and commercial infrastructure is constructed to support the inflow of new residents. 24:41 We see this demand first hand in our downstream Rebar Fabrication operations. Our best leading indicator of future activity is our level of construction bids. This measure continues to grow on a year-over-year basis and reached its highest ever second quarter rate. New project quotes are well balanced between public and private sector work, as well as across industries. Activity has increased in traditional areas of private non-residential like office mixed use, commercial and industrial. 25:14 Additionally, the sectors that were hot during the pandemic, warehousing, datacenter and healthcare remains strong sources of demand. Late in the quarter as a result of the current energy market turbulence we even began to see previously delayed LNG projects reemerge. Rising on downstream business are at historically attractive levels and should be nicely profitable, when shipped in quarters ahead. 25:42 I would…

Operator

Operator

29:13 Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Michael Glick with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Michael Glick

Analyst

29:49 Good morning. Could you just remind us on how your power contracts and hedges in Poland are structured? The implications for margins going forward and given those important stats you cited earlier. Do you think rebar prices can offset the incremental energy costs? And then shorter term has there been any change in demand or customer behavior in the very recent terms since the invasion?

Barbara Smith

Management

30:23 Let me take a couple of them and then I'm going to pass it to Paul. First and foremost, we do not see any concern relative to energy supply to our Polish operation, Poland is probably the least dependent country on the effect of geography. And so, Paul can talk more specifically about our energy hedges, which will also provide some benefit to us in the near-term. But as you know, a number of steel operations have shuttered, due to the rise in energy prices, and I just want to emphasize that we don't see any disruption in supply. 31:13 As it relates to demand, we are not seeing any negative effect to demand. Bear in mind that very, very large portion of our output stays in the Polish market, we do ship into our second largest market would be Germany. But we're not seeing any changes in demand, as a result of the conflict.

Paul Lawrence

Management

31:39 Yes, Mike, and good morning. Just a little bit additional information on the Polish power arrangement, as Barbara said, you know, it is not dependent on natural gas as a source of energy for the country as other countries within Europe are primarily it is a coal-based generation of energy. So not only are the spot prices, lower in Poland then what we see across much of the West -- of the much of the rest of Western Europe. We also have the financial arrangement, such that our exposure to spot prices is very reduced, as we've talked about in the past the -- we've got both financial hedges in place, which have a significant portion of our overall power, as well as we've got various arrangements with our power supplier, which includes a portion of fixed price power. And so the increase as a result of energy has not been a material increase to the overall cost structure related to our Polish operations.

Michael Glick

Analyst

32:59 Got it. And then, you know, I guess the main question I get so pose it to you is just, I mean, do you all have the view that rebar prices in both US and Europe will increase more so than cost via scrap? And you mentioned energy is a small piece, but curious to get your view there?

Barbara Smith

Management

33:26 Yes, Michael, and we have to be careful what we say relative to selling price, but what I would say, as you know there was a significant correction, excuse me, correction in scrap prices in the March by as a result of the conflict, both in the US and around the world. And the beauty of our business and our products is that our customer base is used to adjustments, when we see those fluctuations in raw material prices. The other thing I would point out is we do not require any pig iron for our melt need, so the pressure for us is less significant than other players, and we also don't require prime scrap in the prime and the pig is where there is significant impact relative to the conflict in Ukraine. So we feel good about the market absorbing the various inflationary pressures, not only scrap, but other inflationary pressures that we're all familiar with.

Michael Glick

Analyst

34:42 Okay. Got it. Thank you very much.

Barbara Smith

Management

34:44 Thank you, Michael.

Operator

Operator

34:49 Our next question comes from Seth Rosenfeld with BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

Seth Rosenfeld

Analyst · BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

34:57 Hi, good afternoon, thanks for taking our questions today, another question on Europe, please. In your prepared remarks, you touched on the EU's high reliance on Russia, Ukraine and Belarus for imports and long product. Can you remind us on the current effective capacity of your Polish mill, obviously with the third rolling line recently ramped up? Should we assume if any additional upside to output volumes there as recent performance representative of MAPs potential output? Just thinking about potential for share gains, I'll stop there, please.

Barbara Smith

Management

35:30 Thank you, Seth. Hope you're doing well. You know, with the sanctions, we do see that as a potential opportunity for us in Poland, not only for the reasons we just mentioned around the ability to continue operations uninterrupted, due to available energy and we also don't see any major risks from an overall supply chain. But it could create a tightness in the market, I think, as you know, the sanctions included some language suggesting that the quotas that are currently allocated to Russia and Ukraine could be allocated to other countries. But our current view and its early is that, that could represent an opportunity for CMC, and I'm not going to comment on specific capacity numbers, because that, that varies based on the product mix that you're running and we do have some ability to ship product mix around across the platform. 36:46 But certainly the addition of that rolling line was very effective and has been outperforming our expectations as Paul indicated, and we see that scenario continuing to be really favorable to generate just a very attractive return on that investment.

Seth Rosenfeld

Analyst · BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

37:12 Thank you. And a separate question, please with regard to conversion costs or controllable costs. And I'm not quite sure of your comments were reflective of global cost paid specific to the US. But given that in the last quarter, there was other maintenance outage costs? What scale of decrease or alleviation of that pressures reflecting the Q3? If you can quantify that, please and then in other direction are you expecting any incremental increase in freight or alloys going into Q3, please?

Paul Lawrence

Management

37:43 Yes, Seth as far as the maintenance outages, it’s been now over a year and I would say probably closer to a year and a half that we've been operating our facilities at a high rate of utilization and as a result we are continuing to do necessary preventative maintenance across our operations. We did get a lot of those done within the second quarter, but some will continue into the third quarter as well. But mostly the focus is on the continued reliability of the equipment versus significant costs associated to the outages. 38:39 If we look at our overall outlook for costs going forward to us it's really how do we position ourselves in comparison to other industrial activity even outside the steel industry and we believe we are very, very well positioned, as you look at the innovation that we have brought with the micro mill as an example, that is the lowest energy consumption form of producing steel in the world today and as a result of the impact that we have seen from rising energy costs, yes we’re not immune to it, but it is lower than what has been incurred by others. So we are not anticipating based on what we see today significant further increases in cost. However, it will depend on what happens to the general inflation factors. But what we are confident of South is really our competitive position will remain very, very strong and being able to be a low-cost producer.

Seth Rosenfeld

Analyst · BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

39:52 Okay, just to clarify on maintenance would that be owned be down Q-over-Q, it sounds like it is going to be compensated for by inflation elsewhere, am I understanding it correctly?

Paul Lawrence

Management

40:04 The maintenance itself is likely to continue to be with us in into the third quarter as we continue to go through our routine maintenance at other facilities.

Seth Rosenfeld

Analyst · BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

40:17 Okay, understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

40:23 Our next question comes from Curt Woodworth with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Curt Woodworth

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

40:29 Yes. Thanks, good morning everyone.

Barbara Smith

Management

40:32 Good morning, Curt.

Paul Lawrence

Management

40:33 Good morning, Curt.

Curt Woodworth

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

40:34 You know, Barbara I was wondering if you could comment on some of the current dynamics at play in Poland just from a supply demand perspective. I know that Europe put sanctions on inability to import steel from Russia and Belarus and historically, I believe Belarus have been a pretty big exporter into your region in Poland. And some of the price hikes we've seen recently coming out of North and South Europe have rebar in anywhere from 1,200 up to 1,350 metric tons, so pretty dramatic increases? So what is your ability to kind of capitalize on that situation? Are you evaluating ways to maybe change your customer flow path to be able to migrate more material potentially in the Northern Europe to capture those prices? 41:23 And then can you comment at all about how -- what's going on in Europe from a pricing standpoint? And as the Turkish pricing is up to probably going higher, how that's kind of feeding into your thinking around US pricing in terms of the arbitrage and, kind of, how customers are thinking about imports maybe today versus where they were a month ago?

Barbara Smith

Management

41:49 Okay, there's a lot there. And you're absolutely right, Curt that Belarus and Russia are significant importers into the EU. Like we said they account for about 46% of the long steel imports into the EU. So by those flows being cut off, I think we're going to wait and see how those quotas are allocated elsewhere, but we were enjoying an extremely strong demand situation when that flow was coming into the EU. Now that does disrupted, I think that just creates additional opportunity for us to capitalize on not only our high quality product and service, our low cost position, I think, it will continue to support a favorable margin environment. And we have the greatest flexibility we've ever had in the ownership of the Polish assets in terms of optimizing our product mix and optimizing our margin. 43:12 So it's early in the understanding of how the supply chain is going to be impacted by this. But we do definitely see it as a market opportunity and we do see it as something that is going to continue to support a really strong margin environment. And as I said earlier at this point demand is still extremely strong. I'd like to harking back to the COVID, which was an unexpected crisis and there was huge concern about disruption in activity and demand, and we saw the exact opposite that construction activity was -- has the ability to continue on throughout that pandemic and we had some of our strongest quarterly results. And at this stage of the situation, we don't see anything that is going to disrupt that strong environment that we were experiencing before. And in fact there could be an opportunity or two that, that presents itself. 44:31As it relates to the US, clearly scrap is traded globally and the rise in raw material prices and the disruption of prime grades and pig iron, and all of that is reaching havoc on some, not on us, but it is also affecting the typical importers of steel into the US market. And currently, there are concerns among our customers about taking commitments for imported product, there is concerns about logistics and timing of delivery of imported product. So we are seeing an increase in inquiries from customers that would be typically looking at those important offers.

Curt Woodworth

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

45:30 Okay. And then on fabrication, if I go back, back when you used to reported the separate segment, I mean, seem like EBITDA per ton that kind of range from 35 to 75 to 80 and it seems like right now it's materially above, kind of, historical levels and -- one of your peers commented that their fabrication EBITDA will almost double sequentially ended this quarter calendar 1Q? So can you provide any context on how profitability looks? I know you don't typically disclose that, but could you give us any sense for maybe how profitability looks today versus through cycle? And then your comment that backlog and pricing is getting better wouldn’t for that margins should continue to expand going forward? Yes, your guidance, you’ve kind of said that margins would be flat sequentially. So would that kind of imply, you would expect margins in the rebar mills segment to maybe decline, which would offset fabrication expansion or any more granularity you can provide around that near-term outlook would be appreciated. Thank you very much.

Paul Lawrence

Management

46:44 Curt, with respect to the value above scrap costs for the downstream business, yes, there is no doubt that there is a tremendous amount of activity that is going on in the US marketplace, which consistent with supply-demand balances is providing an opportunity to exceed those current -- there was historical levels of margin over and above of scrap in the downstream business, we've seen that margin expansion in the mills, the fab business just has the lag effect before it's fully captured -- fully catches up. 47:39 However, it is in a position where overall we should continue to see expansion of those numbers as we work through the remainder of the lower cost backlog. With respect to the overall margins going forward as 5% scrap costs were up substantially and in March and as a result, it's difficult to precisely forecast how that will flow through into the third quarter given the significance of that. And so more or less, that's where we're directing that margins will remain relatively consistent, but there is a lot of water to flow under that bridge before we can give much more specific guidance.

Curt Woodworth

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

48:35 Understood. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

48:41 Our next question comes from Emily Chieng with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Emily Chieng

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

48:46 Good morning, Barbara and Paul, and thanks for taking my questions. The first one I have for you guys is just around your comment earlier around shipments in the third quarter being, up sequentially in the high-single or low double-digit range? Just wanted to confirm if that was an overall company comment? And maybe if you could get some granularity around what that would mean for the US side as well? Because it still looks like, if we were to imply a low double-digit increased sequentially, but that could be still lower than what we'd seen in the past for third quarter?

Paul Lawrence

Management

49:22 Emily, I'll start it and Barbara can add any color. But essentially, it will be relatively consistent to both. Obviously the North America represents the majority of our overall volume, so that will be in line with the increase and have more significance. We've seen a big increase in volumes this past quarter in Poland, there’s still was a seasonal factor, but wasn't as significant in the European segment. But really what we'll see is North America rebound, as that represents the majority of our overall volumes.

Emily Chieng

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

50:11 Understood. And then my second question is just around, I think, it was the 1.5 million tons of incremental rebar demand, when we see the impacts of the infrastructure bill rate to full run rate there? Curious how we should be thinking about that number as it relates to any sort of sensitivities you may have run with respect to higher energy costs, labor and other raw material costs and whether or not that 1.5 million tons are still the right number given we've shifted higher along the cost curve a lot of those other items there?

Barbara Smith

Management

50:47 Yes. Well, Emily, good morning. I think we're pretty confident in the 1.5 million there are others, I know that it forecast a number that's a bit higher than that, and the other thing I would say is that we anticipate seeing the benefit of that start to occur in 2023 and that's just the normal time period that, that you typically see when, you know, a -- in infrastructure plan like this has put in place, it takes time for the projects to come to market. This bill is funded and we do believe the activity will move forward. I would also remind you that the steel component of most projects is a small percentage of the overall cost of the project and we'll see how it evolves going forward and by 2023 you could see some abatement of some of these near-term inflationary pressures that are result of the dislocation that's going on there in Russia and Ukraine. But we think it's a pretty solid view.

Emily Chieng

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

52:07 Understood. Thanks, Barbara.

Barbara Smith

Management

52:09 Thank you, Emily.

Operator

Operator

52:14 The next question comes from Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Timna Tanners

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

52:20 Yes. Hey, good morning.

Barbara Smith

Management

52:21 Good morning, Timna.

Timna Tanners

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

52:22 Wanted to -- I wanted to follow-up on kind of the scrap and the dynamic in the US. And I think, I understood you saying that you expect to be able to pass-through the increase of prices, but it's all happened really quickly in your -- it sounds like playing somewhat conservative in terms of the guidance. I guess it to -- ask in a different way, I know that you don't have to buy pig iron, you don't have to buy plant scrap, but everyone, who does is scrambling for obsolete, but sounds like there could be continued inflation in that grade where you do traffic? So just the simple question is do you see anything that could be different in terms of your historical ability to pass-through scrap prices, because it has been pretty nice and consistent for a while now long products, that is really the first question? And are you concerned at all about your ability to pass it through and seeing a scramble and even the absolute grades? Thanks.

Barbara Smith

Management

53:25 Yes. Thank you, Timna, I'll give it a crack and then Paul can add anything if I'm -- I own that something, but we were able to make complete our buy in March and typically, you know, there is plentiful supply of scrap and the grades that we need to utilize in our operations. Yes, there is maybe a bit more competition for it and thus the rise in raw material price, but there is still plentiful supply and probably, we're in a better position in other parts of the world that, that I don't have the same reservoir scrap as we do in our key markets. We're really sensitive to our customers and what they had to absorb already in raw material price changes over the last period of time. 54:26 But the two key things in, you know, as well, what's the overall demand and what's the supply side, and as I indicated earlier, we're seeing certainly not seeing a difference in terms of important fact import levels are probably lower in current license period and customers do have concerns. So I would say that we're actually have more customer inquiries looking for us to cover their needs, because they have less confidence in you know that alternate supply coming in through imports. So you put all that together and it is construction season and weather is beautiful here today in Dallas and folks want to blow and go on these projects and particularly with some of the weather that we've seen here and other parts of the country. Now is the time where, you know, customers want to really advance their projects. 55:41 So I think it's a -- it's going to be an environment where as certainly customers will understand the raw material price changes. There'll be ebbs and flows as you know we -- when an price changes announced, there is always a future date when that goes into effect and so sometimes we see folks trying to accelerate some shipment, but and then there's also the lag of raw material that was purchased in prior periods at lower values. But net-net, I think, it's going to be still a really strong environment.

Timna Tanners

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

56:25 Okay. And then if I could -- the second follow-up or the follow-up is that you talked about the European market being particularly tight and I think that is to reflect the absence of Russia, Ukraine, material and some closures of capacity we saw in Spain. But Turkey is shifting its gears to export to the European market, so could that on also -- and also the US tends to -- it has historically imported some from Russia, Ukraine and other European markets? Is there also potential for the US market to further tighten, if this continues, if this contract continues?

Barbara Smith

Management

57:02 I think that possibility exists, so that was certainly what I was trying to convey as it relates to our Polish operations, given that Belarus and Russia and now are under sanctions and that supply has been cut off. There is still the quota in place both in Poland and in the US, which is going to limit supply from other countries. And as I also -- I indicated the EU language on around sanctions was they were going to consider reallocating some of the Russia and Belarus quotas to other countries, but we haven't seen the details on that. And given the overall strong demand in most of the major markets, who knows if the countries they allocated to have the ability to take advantage of that. So we do see the potential opportunity for further tightening of supply.

Timna Tanners

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

58:13 Thank you.

Barbara Smith

Management

58:15 Thank you, Timna.

Operator

Operator

58:20 Our next question comes from Alex Hacking with Citi. Please go ahead.

Alex Hacking

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead.

58:26 Yes. Hey, thanks. The strong bid volumes that you're seeing in the US, is there any part of that, that you can link to the infrastructure bill? Or it's still way too soon for that and those tons are still to come? Thanks.

Barbara Smith

Management

58:41 Now the beauty of it, Alex, is that we aren't seeing that yet and that's on the come, so the activity that we're seeing is -- it's anything -- it's normal transportation bill there is, I don't want to convey that there is not infrastructure contained in that, but it's really being funded by the existing transportation though it's not the increase to that. We think that, that demand will start to see in 2023, which will be perfect timing with the startup of Arizona 2. So we -- despite these -- despite the volatility, we're still quite bullish for the short, medium and long-term.

Alex Hacking

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead.

59:29 Okay, thanks. And then on Poland, first let me commend the team there on the humanitarian efforts. On the supply side, you mentioned obviously lack of supply coming from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. We are hearing a lot about very high power costs put in some EIFs in Europe temporarily out of commission. Is that something you're seeing that's further tightening up the market there?

Barbara Smith

Management

60:00 It's so early Alex, but it's inevitable, right? I think, probably speculators were driving some of the spike in energy prices, and I think there has been certainly an abatement in oil prices. So we'll see where it settles out. As it relates to the conflict, but I do think any steel operation in Europe that does not have their energy covered both from a supply and a price perspective, even if it's partially covered from a price perspective as we are -- we have a good portion of that's covered. And there are many steel mills that don't have certainty of supply or they -- and they are purchasing their energy completely on a spot basis. So that will become an economic decision for those operations and that will depend upon a lot of factors. 61:15 But just the ones that we have seen thus far that have announced curtailment, shutdowns, temporary shutdowns, whatever you want to call it, you lose a week's worth of output across a number of mills that is definitely going to tighten supply and we are confident in Poland in not only our energy supply as we indicated earlier, but also that our energy cost relative to the competition is going to be at an advantageous value. So all these factors we believe support really strong results out of our Polish opportunity or our Polish operations and could represent a market opportunity for us, but we just need to see how all this plays out over time.

Alex Hacking

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead.

62:18 Okay, great. Thank you.

Barbara Smith

Management

62:20 Thank you, Alex.

Operator

Operator

62:25 And our final question comes from Phil Gibbs with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

62:32 Yes. Thanks very much, good morning.

Paul Lawrence

Management

62:34 Good morning, Phil.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

62:37 With the [audio gap] for net working capital, I know you guys have built up a lot over the last two to four quarters. When does that start to level out?

Paul Lawrence

Management

62:57 Phil, your audio wasn't great. But if your question was what's our view towards working capital from this point forward? Had it been not for this the scrap increase that we've seen here in March, I would have said, we would expect it to be pretty, pretty level at this point. However, with the further increase of substantial increase close to $100 a ton that we've seen in scrap costs, we will continue to see investment into the third quarter as a rough magnitude, it will probably be close to $100 million that we would looked if these prices continue at that higher level to invest in the coming quarters.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

63:55 Okay.

Barbara Smith

Management

63:56 And we do see a seasonal release in the fall as construction activity slows down, due to holidays and weather. So we generally see a nice release in the fall, but I mean it's all going to depend on where raw material prices go, but as Paul articulated in his comments, we have significant flip financial flexibility on our balance sheet to fund that additional working capital based upon where raw material prices go.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

64:33 Okay. And then on the CapEx this year, I think you're circling around $500 million. How much of that again is the growth related portion of that capital? And should we be expecting there to be some investment in 2023 in the new micro mill as you get past the site selection process?

Paul Lawrence

Management

65:02 Phil this is obviously the big year for investment in AZ 2 and so, yes, it represents over half of the $500 million. It will come off significantly as we enter into 2023 given the permitting process that would be required from the new mill probably won't see a heavy lift of spend for the new micro mill. So as we look to 2023 it will come down from these levels, pretty substantially.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

65:43 Thanks very much.

Paul Lawrence

Management

65:45 Thanks, Phil.

Barbara Smith

Management

65:46 Thank you, Phil.

Operator

Operator

65:49 This concludes our question-and-answer session [indiscernible] now I'd like to turn the call back over to you.

Barbara Smith

Management

65:58 Thank you everyone for joining us on today's conference call. And we will look forward to speaking with many of you during our investor calls in the coming days and weeks. Hope you all have a wonderful day. Thank you and happy [audio gap]

Operator

Operator

66:16 This concludes today's Commercial Metals Company conference call. You may now disconnect.